1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of collaborative computing and more particularly to scheduling meetings in a collaborative computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Individuals worldwide can converge over a communications network to share ideas, documents, sound and images without needing to be in the same room. Technology facilitates this through multipoint audio conferencing, video conferencing over traditional networks, and many forms of conferencing over the Internet. A substantial collection of technologies and protocols has been assembled to effectively deliver audio, video, and data over the single digital communications medium of the Internet.
An e-meeting represents one popular form of electronic collaboration. In a meeting, participants can view a common space, for instance a whiteboard or a shared application (or both), through which ideas can be exchanged. The viewing of the common space can be complemented with a teleconference, a videoconference, an instant messaging session, or any combination thereof, such that the meeting can act as a near substitute for an in-person meeting in a conference room.
Collaborators who participate in meetings often maintain a personal schedule managed by a scheduling system. Collaborators can schedule meetings within the personal schedule sua sponte, or the collaborators can schedule meetings responsive to the receipt of an invitation. An invitation typically contains data regarding the meeting such as a topic, list of invitees, and most importantly, a date, time and location for the meeting. Using this data, the invitee can be prompted either to accept or decline the invitation. Oftentimes, the acceptance or declination of an invitation can be accomplished with a single user action such as a mouse click.
Generally, to initiate a technology facilitated meeting, a meeting host can transmit a meeting invitation to a mailing list of desired participants to the meeting. The invitation can be transmitted in a number of ways, including e-mail, or through the operation of a group calendaring application. In the typical circumstance, some of the invited desired participants cannot attend the meeting at a proposed primary location which has been configured to support the meeting with the necessary meeting tools, such as a video conferencing unit or audio conferencing telephone. Likewise, one or more of those same invited desired participants cannot attend the meeting at a designated alternative or subsidiary location also configured to engage in the meeting.
For an invited desired participant to the meeting to attend the meeting in those circumstances, the invited desired participant first must identify a non-designated subsidiary location configured to engage in the meeting. Once identified, the non-designated subsidiary location can be proposed to the meeting host to become designated as a subsidiary location. Yet, invited participants can request such a designation of a subsidiary location without knowing how many other invited participants also prefer the designation of the same subsidiary location. The addition of a new subsidiary location therefore, can be burdensome and can discourage optimal use of distributed meeting technology.
Under current technology and practices, the invitee who cannot attend at an established site can choose among only the following less than desirable courses of action:
(A) Opt not to attend the meeting;
(B) Attempt to persuade the meeting host to schedule a repeat occurrence of the meeting;
(C) Attend the meeting from a location having limited facilities available; or,
(D) Identify and contact other invitees and administrators to the proposed meeting to coordinate the identification of a suitably configured location and its designation as an additional subsidiary location.